Unusual transcript - apply to college now or in a year?

Parent Cafe
1

<p>I have an unusual situation with my DD who is a HS senior. Let me say that her health is of highest priority, but I am just posting here to get some good advice and/or learn some things that I may not anticipate or be aware of.</p>

<p>DD has always been an introvert and somewhat anxious sort. She is currently being treated for anxiety and depression and while we have a good team in place, we have recently come to the conclusion that certain parts of the school day are just too much for her to handle now. At the beginning of the year, her school was very accommodating about letting her have lunch by herself, and allowing her to do some classes at home. </p>

<p>However, she has started having too much anxiety/panic in some class situations and has really been unable to learn at all. We have found a very good cyber school that comes highly recommended and are considering enrolling her there to finish senior year. She is very excited at this idea because she does enjoy certain classes and would like to focus on learning again.</p>

<p>Prior to this, I had already been urging her to take a gap year as she is very young chronologically for her grade. We are very aware that she may or may not be ready to go away to college in a year.</p>

<p>One more piece of relevant info, she did her ninth grade year as a day student at a pretty rigorous boarding school before transferring to her current tiny holistic school. She liked BS but the 6 day a week schedule and constant pressure from the “alpha” kids did not fit her style. (And in hindsight, she was probably already feeling some anxiety but did not know it)</p>

<p>So, I am curious as to advice on the following:</p>

<p>Apply to colleges now as planned and consider deferring for a year? How would her transcript be viewed - I cannot imagine it would be favorably. She was already planning to apply to smaller schools that want interviews and we would hope that an interview would serve her well. She has a lot of good things to offer on her applications but I am concerned about how three different school situations would look.</p>

<p>Do we abandon applying at all for now and apply next fall, and plan on her taking a couple of courses at CC or someplace next year?</p>

<p>Thanks for your words of wisdom!</p>

2

<p>My free advice. Please take care of your daughter first. That is more important than college right now. Applying to schools and going on interviews…and waiting for decisions…carries its own level of anxiety and worry. I can’t imagine adding this to your daughter 's plate would be helpful.</p>

<p>See if you can help her find something fulfilling to do next year…maybe a combination of a part time job, and some meaningful to her volunteer work.</p>

<p>College can wait.</p>

3

<p>I don’t know your daughter at all,but from what you posted it does not sound like she is at all ready to go through the process, let alone go away in less than a year. I agree, give her another year to work through her issues and become more comfortable socially. Another possibility if you think she is up to it, is to have her apply and then defer at the preferred institution if she is not emotionally ready.</p>

4

<p>I don’t know your daughter, but I was accelerated academically as a child and was age 16 when I went off to college. I was a shy kid and had a particularly rough time through the middle school years and early years of high school. I did well in school, graduated college at age 20 and completed law school at age 23. But in hindsight I realized that a good deal of my social problems growing up stemmed from lack of maturity. Things started to get better for me at around age 16 and I had no problems making friends in college, but my peers were way ahead of me when it came to job skills and employability. I was also physically small for my age, which was a problem in childhood, up until around age 15 when I reached my current adult height.</p>

<p>So I gave my own daughter more time - the added maturity and confidence she had being with same-age peers outweighed the frustration she felt in elementary school from the mismatch between grade level and her own academic readiness, which was addressed somewhat through partial acceleration and other enrichment activities.</p>

<p>It sounds like your daughter is having much more serious issues with social anxiety than I ever did – but at the same time I wonder how much age/maturity might play a part. </p>

<p>From what you describe, I don’t think your daughter is ready to go away to college in a year. It sounds like she is retreating and withdrawing from a situation that is overwhelming to her – not a recipe for success to go off to a new environment with new people and demands. So you might do better to plan for her to either attend community college next year, or to enroll as a commuter at a local 4 year college. </p>

<p>Long term, I think that no matter how odd her schedule looks to colleges, it is better to build a stronger foundation before college than to continue to forge ahead when she isn’t ready. </p>

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<p>Perhaps try CC for 2 years, letting her live at home. My parents all lived at home thru college and next, and did just fine in life. </p>

6

<p>@surfcity, I pm’d you</p>

7

<p>Thanks for all the advice so far. And yes, our overwhelming first criteria is helping our daughter heal emotionally and develop skills and techniques to master anxiety. Having said that, she is very excited at the possibility of going away to school and had several places she really thinks she could thrive at (and where I think she could too, assuming she is totally healthy). She has done a lot of CA work and drafted an essay. </p>

<p>While I certainly cannot picture her going away yet, her doctors do not rule out that possibility by next September. But either way, let’s say we do decide now to take a gap year. How should we handle the logistics? Go ahead and finish applying this year and then defer? What happens if she applies and then decides not to go anywhere, can she reapply to the same schools again?</p>

<p>Or is it better to apply next fall? What will the schools be looking for as far as what she would be doing at that time? If she is taking some classes at a CC, can she still apply as a freshman?</p>

<p>While she is young, in many ways she is very mature. Part of what she has problems with at school are what she deems her immature peers - those kids who blow off work, or drink or aren’t serious in class. It bothers her in a dysfunction way unfortunately. </p>

<p>She does have her own craft business and has absolutely no problem going into town and approaching store owners and asking them to carry her product. She regularly goes to craft shows and loves to talk to customers and ask advice from other craft mentors. Things I could not have done at her age, no way no how. </p>

<p>She has no problem being in crowded venues, football stadiums, flea markets, etc, places that are typically difficult for anxious people. She loves shopping and she organizes parties for her class. She is just unable to concentrate when exposed to certain sounds and I believe she is an unusually sensitive person in all senses of the word. </p>

<p>But you all are right, our immediate and overarching concern is getting her completely healthy. I am on here just looking for advice about how to handle a gap and her unusual transcript.</p>

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<p>All things being equal, it is logistically much easier to apply to college while still in high school and then defer admission rather than apply during a gap year. Issues like requesting letters of recommendation and transcripts are much easier handled and the teachers have fresh memories of the student. Colleges vary in their deferral policies. When D1 deferred admission they needed to know her plans for the year and she was not allowed to take any classes for college credit. Her merit scholarship remained active. You need to ask each school about their policy. With so many kids taking gap years, I wouldn’t think that such an inquiry would raise any red flags or hinder her chances at admission.</p>

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<p>I know several kids who could not function in senior year, could not do school in the usual way, managed to graduate one way or the other, and went on to college that fall and actually did fine. Senior year is a source of anxiety which sometimes continues, sometimes becomes more manageable, and sometimes dissipates. It is always possible that this anxiety is “adjustment”-related, and not chronic, meaning that leaving home and ending life as it is might be part of the cause. The fact that she has some schools she likes and is working on applications is a really good sign but also, to me, supports that as she moves forward she experiences anxiety. This is different from the kid who is so anxious or depressed that he or she cannot show any interest or do any application work or even talk or think about it.</p>

<p>It may also be that homeschooling/online work relieves her of some social or academic pressures and the lower key atmosphere of learning at home will help a lot.</p>

<p>We have found that colleges love “outliers” ( a word used by one admissions officer). One of my kids hated school and danced during high school. She left after junior year, did a GED, then an online diploma and generally had a pretty confused set of transcripts. The colleges she chose were good fits, artsy and small, and loved her story. I know a young man who had similar issues to your daughter, delayed graduation, went on a wilderness camping trip with a well-known organization for a few months, came back and finished high school at community college, and got into almost every (top) college he applied to (except one, really, he got into maybe 7 amazing schools).</p>

<p>If you are already thinking your daughter needs a gap year (which may not turn out to be true) she can certainly defer at many schools: ask them or look it up. But she could also stretch out this last year of high school and take fewer classes while focusing on her crafts business, following other interests, or even going on a wilderness trip!</p>

<p>And if she does finish this year, the time freed up because she is not at school can be used wisely and creatively perhaps, in ways that may help her. Dance or tai chi? Art? Learning to sky dive? Meditation, Tai Chi, and getting attuned for Reiki can help with anxiety and can be empowering. Tapping and EFT are interesting too, for anxiety.</p>

<p>I think the crafts business will truly interest colleges and if she can show that she went off the usual path to do something with that, any admissions office will find her interesting.</p>

<p>I think about half of all college students suffer depression and/or anxiety. Make sure your daughter knows this and that she is not as atypical as she thinks. As for high schools, I well remember our school nurse saying that the whole senior class was “a mess.”</p>

<p>Fiinally, the fact that she did not like the higher pressure boarding school and liked the smaller “holistic” one must help her figure out the best fit.</p>

<p>She sounds like a smart, mature, entrepreneurial type of person and I think she will do well in the long run :)</p>

<p>p.s. Did you mean she is noise sensitive? This can cause anxiety and then again anxiety can cause noise sensitivity. Has she tried white noise or a recording of a waterfall or anything like that?</p>

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<p>Thank you @compmom. I do think she will be okay in the long run. Figuring out the details is where I get tripped up. We have tabled any discussion of colleges or apps until 11/1, except for an open house that she has asked to attend. I think we have found some schools where they will look at the “whole person” instead of just stats. One place even encouraged kids to send something additional along, and she would plan to send a portfolio about her business with photos etc.</p>

<p>She is sensitive in all senses of the word, although she didn’t have objections to certain clothes or foods as a child. She has a condition called “misophonia” which in which certain sounds, usually eating sounds or repetitive noises like fingernails drumming, can cause undue distress. It literally sounds like nails on a blackboard to sufferers and they often feel they have to flee or some get very angry at the source of the sounds. Hence the lunch by herself. It was unbearable for her to eat at a table full of teens. Sadly it’s not a well-known condition and doctors are not sure if it is psychiatric, neurological, or some combo of both.</p>

<p>She does use noise canceling head phones in study halls and things like that. Her sensitivity in the classroom is a mix of decibel level, but also she cannot stand when a student talks over another student, or there is “too” lively a debate going on. I think that also makes her anxious because she is so sensitive to the feelings of others and cannot imagine talking over a teacher etc. Hopefully as her general anxiety levels diminish, these kinds of triggers will be less too.</p>

<p>In November we will see how she feels about completing apps. If it is not a good idea then we will postpone until next fall and just see how things shake out. </p>